St. John presidential candidates exchange jabs at forum

The campaign to replace former St. John the Baptist Parish President Bill Hubbard will be heated if the action in a Thursday night candidates forum is any gauge.

Perry Bailey

Buddy
Boe, the parish's acting chief administrative officer, and Natalie
Robottom, who held the same post for four years job under former
President Nickie Monica, indirectly criticized each other's ability to
lead the parish.

"When I was 25, I didn't know what I didn't know," said Robottom, a
49-year-old former school administrator, apparently referring to Boe,
who is 24.

Boe, a former restaurateur, described the the Monica admintration as
inept and unable to solve the parish's long-simmering problems.

"Everybody's got a computer in their front yard, but they can't drink
the water," said Boe, referring to the previous administration's
decision to buy electronic water meters for every household in the
parish, and the water production problems that the Hubbard
administration inherited.

Buddy Boe

The two returned to those themes often during the two-hour event.

Perry Bailey, 56, a another candidate in the race, stayed out of the
fray, touting his experience in helping tackle parish problems during
his four-year tenure on the council ending in 2000.

"I was a uniter, I was a team player. We had to turn this parish
around," he said. "When we came on board in 1996 we had a cash-strapped
parish and a deficit. We turned it around, we were able to provide all
the necessary services to the parish, as well as improvements
thorughout the parish."

The two other candidates in the race, School Board member Gerald Keller
and Parish Councilman Richard "Dale" Wolfe, did not attend the forum,
sponsored by the Community Coalition of Concerned Citizens at the LACE
reception hall in LaPlace.

Natalie Robottom

Organizer
O.J. Breech said the recently formed group is a coalition of several
civil rights and advocacy groups, including River Region Black Chamber
of Commerce, the NAACP chapters of St. John and St. James parishes and
the West Bank Civic Association and the Parents of Public School
Children.

Hubbard pleaded guilty to soliciting bribes and resigned in September.
The winner of the March 27 election will serve the remainder of his
term, which expires in January 2012.

A runoff, if needed, will be held May 1.

Asked for solutions
to address problems in the parish's black community, each of the
candidates answered that problems must be attacked parishwide, not just
for one group or another.

Boe said he would crack down on blight
in all areas of the parish as a way to improve the value of homes and
added that the problem had been ignored in certain areas for years.

Robottom
said she would use business incubators to boost small business, back
education initiatives and try to erase the lines between black
residents and white residents.

"There are people who look at
those numbers and percentages and measure them on a daily basis," she
said. "We need to get past that. We are all citizens of St. John
Parish," she said.

Bailey, an insurance agent and mortgage
broker, said he would dedicate the parish's 3/8th cent sales tax toward
incentives and to work with banks "so that everyone who wants a home
has the ability to own one."